Official blog of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Pennsylvania

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Treating people with dignity and respect is a GOOD thing

Every once in awhile, Rep. Daryl Metcalfe comes out with a whopper. Today he introduced legislation to financially punish Pennsylvania cities that adopt sanctuary policies for illegal alien invader martian foreign strange-looking funny-talking people. And how many PA cities have such policies?

Zero.

Although there are currently no official sanctuary cities in Pennsylvania, over the last two years city officials in both Allentown and York introduced, but did not enact sanctuary ordinances. In June 2007, several Pennsylvania mayors, including John Brenner (York), Chris Doherty (Scranton), Richard Friedberg (Meadville), Richard Gray (Lancaster), Ed Pawloski (Allentown), Luke Ravenstahl (Pittsburgh), Brian Sanford (Titusville) and Rick Vilello (Lock Haven), went on public record at aclupa.blogspot.com in opposition to Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta’s city ordinance to criminally penalize individuals caught providing jobs, housing or other taxpayer-funded benefits to illegal aliens.

Is that a reference to SF in a press release from a state legislator? That, my friends, is a first, as far as I know. The post in question actually linked to a story in The Standard Speaker of Hazleton.

Metcalfe continues to use his "Invasion PA" report. This report was debunked by conservative columnist Dimitri Vassilaros of The Pittsburgh Tribune Review. In that column, Northampton County DA John Morganelli distanced himself from the report, after he was one of the featured speakers at the report's release. (Morganelli is the Democratic nominee for Attorney General.)

The ACLU has no position on sanctuary cities, but we encourage governments- local, state, and federal- to implement policies that discourage discrimination, welcome immigrants, and carry out the basic American value of fairness. Only Rep. Metcalfe could think that treating people with dignity and respect is a bad thing.